Children Don't Have to Kill Your Career (or Vice Versa)

Why should your job dictate your life? I saw a recent study which said that nearly half of all women scientists found their career kept them from having as many children as they had wanted. That is one bad decision.

I polled around 100 working women and asked them about the impact of more than one child on their work. Here’s what I asked: “For those working women who have more than one child, was the additional child a much bigger burden to manage (after just one)? If yes, rate it on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being much more work and 1 being not much more."

The answers were all over the board. Here are some of the ratings and related comments I received:

(2)-"The more the merrier (with three kids)."

(2)-"Sure, the schedules had to be a little less flexible (meals, bedtime, child care), but there was less that was new to us as parents. We already had the "stuff" and had figured out a thing or two. As the second child got older and more communicative and mobile, the two could play together and learn important concepts like sharing, being nice, etc.(with two kids)."

Another rated it (2)- "If you are organized and detail-oriented, it is not a big burden(with two kids)."

Certainly more children bring more challenges. One woman with four kids said, “I would say it was a (2) with one (3) with three and an 11 with four.”

Maura Schreier-Fleming is a sales strategist and founder of Best@Selling, a sales training and consulting company. She wrote Monday Morning Sales Tips and works with sales professionals who want to sell more and get more business

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